Scientific Chronicles 9

Despite an unwise amount of alcohol consumption, in the end the classes were designed that non-sparks were capable of passing, it was in the practical applications that the sparks were graded on higher standards. 

So while she did have to improvise a hangover remedy out of the contents of Colette’s dormitory’s medicine cabinet and personal ice chest full of snacks and beverages… she passed with grades that she’d be proud to present to her parents, oh so long ago. 

Which meant she had three weeks until next semester, and she planned on spending them well. This time in history was, much like in the other timelines, a time of unprecedented innovation and industry, as the Baron’s Peace, the Pax Transylvania, allowed the intelligent to share knowledge and develop industrial capacity unfettered by war or strife… comparatively, anyway. 

This had advantages, in that important steps in invention, the creation of custom fabrications of metal, glass, and even more exotic parts was readily available to any Spark with the money to pay for the products, without them needing to invest in the entire infrastructure, as they would when their only options was to conquer and set the populace to work for them. 

The drawback, of course, is that they were, generally, absolutely swamped with orders. At least, the ones in Paris were. So Tanya had been trying to get the master glassers to do some work for them for over a month, with no success. 

Fortunately, Paris was not where the best glassmakers in Europa were. Even better, the best were in Mechanicsburg, and the remote location of the place meant that they were much less busy. So she had plenty of time to go over, thoroughly explain her designs and requirements, give her down payment, and come back after the next semester. 

Except… ”No. Absolutely not.” Tanya said, “I refuse.”

Gil wanted to take the train. “It’s the safest way to get to Castle Wulfenbach’s next stop, and we can borrow a dirigible from there.” Gil said patiently. “I know you’re scared of trains, but-”

“I am not scared of trains.” Tanya lied, her heart pounding at even saying the word. Damn this brain’s faulty wiring… The spark was brilliant, really enhanced her memory… but some things were not meant to be remembered so clearly. Really, death wasn’t supposed to be remembered at all, so some glitching was within reasonable expectations. Briefly, she checked behind her, which was stupid. They weren’t even near the tracks. Those were two hundred and six meters away from her current position. “I refuse to trust my safety in the hands of those madmen.” 

“The Corbiettes are some of the most trustworthy men in Europa.” Gil said again. This was an old argument of theirs. “And you can spend the whole trip in your mecha if you want.”

Tanya thought about the offer. Normally, Gil was the first person to try and pry her out of the Absolute Safety Mecha Mk. IV. But… “No! Sure, they seem trustworthy… until one of the madmen gets it in their head that God wants anything out of anyone, and then all of their so-called codes get thrown out just because ‘God wills it!’” she shouted back. “I am not spending my vacation watching out for robe-wearing lunatics shouting Deus Lo Vult.” Again. If Being X thought she’d die by being shoved in front of a train for a third time, he had another thing coming. “No, I will take an airship to my destination, even if it means I need to buy one to do it!” 

Gil sighed in defeat. “Alright, fine.” He said, “I did anticipate this… I was just hoping I wouldn’t have to burn the favor.”

Favor? “Gil, I have an appointment with an airship dealer later today.” Tanya said, “You don’t need to do anything.”

“You have an appointment with a sleazy airship dealer.” Gil corrected, “While I know a guy with a Wulfenbach surplus airship that he needs to sell fast.”

“...Why?” Tanya asked, suspicious. 

“Because if he doesn’t, he’s going to get his legs broken.” Gil said simply. After a beat, his eyes widened. “Not by me!” He clarified, “But he has a gambling problem, and the snail races haven’t been good to him. It’s thrice the size of the ones you’ve been looking at.”

“Can I afford this airship?” Tanya asked, deadpan. 

Gil rubbed his neck, one of his tells that he was about to lie to her face. “Of course you can! I know your budget. He also owes me.”

…Call him on it? Tanya took a moment to consider. On one hand, Gil was, at the very least, confident that whatever he’s done to make the price something she could afford would work, and that whatever problems the ship in question has, they’d be able to fix it… “Okay, let’s go.” She’ll pry out exactly how much money she just saved from him later, so she can adequately pay him back. “Of course, now I owe you that favor you called in.”

“Friends don’t count favors, Tanya.” Gil insisted. 

“You should have thought of that before mentioning that you were burning one, then.” Tanya shot back. “In fact, I am owed a favor from Monsieur Cannonhat, I’ll simply inform him that his marker now belongs to you.” The Wulfenbach general’s son had needed some emergency repairs done on the club’s airship before the last battle of the semester, and pulled her away from the lovely Millicent Korel, one of Xersephina’s ladies in waiting. Really, in hindsight Gerald was doing her a favor, the girl was a bit too crazily devoted to the princess. It reminded her of Visha, true, but it was a bit terrifying to see that devotion pointed at someone who wasn’t you. 

Hm. Come to think of it, it’s the same logic that unsettles her so much about the Corbiettes. Tanya doesn’t have any doubt in her mind that, if Seffie gave the order, Milly would absolutely kill her lover. It was creepy… Ah well, it wouldn’t be the worst hypocrisy she’s engaged in. It’s not like she’s still married. 

“If it makes you feel better.” Gil said ruefully. “Wouldn’t have to if you’d just take the train.” 

“Not even if my life depended on it.” That would be the best time for Being X to make his move. 

-------------------------

True to Gil’s claims, the ex-Wulfenbach air frigate was substantially larger than what Tanya could ordinarily afford, and that opened up possibilities. Sure, she had to fix it up a bit, but they had two sparks, both of which were well educated on the subject of airships. 

After four days of working around the clock, they had everything set up: Her drone army, her mecha, and the tools she had accumulated over the semester were safely stowed in storage, a deployment chute, and her new onboard workshop respectively, and they had hired on half of the previous crew, as well as replacements for the ones who failed the test Tanya posed them to figure out which ones were trustworthy enough to employ. It was fortunate that there was such a large population of qualified airship crew in Paris, that hiring went so smoothly. The weapons were all missing, but she built replacements while Gil made sure all of the systems were in working order. She didn’t have time to do any major refits, after all. 

The gasbag proudly displayed the crest of the Degurechaff family, a set of silver wings that, for what was presumably the same reason that she once again held this name, serendipitously matched the Silver Wings Assault Medal from her second life. Well, it wasn’t exactly the same, the cross-like flourish around it was replaced with gear teeth instead, a right afforded to them as a noble house that traced their origins to a subordinate spark that was personally awarded the title by the Storm King for meritorious service. 

“I’m surprised you didn’t invite Colette to come with us.” Gil commented after the hubbub of takeoff settled and they were cruising at a sedate hundred kilometers per hour. Not anywhere near the fastest ship out there, nor was it the vessel’s top speed, but it was generally considered a minimum acceptable speed for an airship that isn’t going to be a sitting duck for pirates. “Or Neena.”

“I did, actually.” Tanya said drolly. “Colette has some intensive lessons with her father,” An excuse that Tanya completely understood as higher in priority than their still-casual relationship, “-while Neena’s following a trail of breadcrumbs in the Immortal Library, hoping that she’ll be able to organize an expedition from what she finds.” Neena’s passion in life was adventure, and in this day and age that mostly manifested in a focus on archeology. She spent a lot of time in the museum, under the curator and Head of the Archeology department, Madame Dubois. Her latest obsession was a set of tablets brought in from an expedition, hinting at the existence of the Ghost Women, a culture of pale women with giant spider mounts, at a far earlier time period than they are currently known to exist. So she was doing supplementary research, even if there’s good odds that it wasn’t going to end up going anywhere. Academia was like that, and while the princess has demonstrated a nose for trouble, It wouldn’t be the first dead end Tanya’s seen her run into. 

Gil chuckled. “Well, looks like it’s just you and me…” He paused, “-and the rest of the bridge crew, of course.” He gave her a side-hug, his causal strength letting him perform the maneuver despite her power armor. 

“Do not pay us any mind, Monsieur Holzfaller.” The captain said, his Parisian accent relatively thick when he was speaking in German, which is what Gil and Tanya were speaking. “It will take about twenty-four hours to reach our destination.”

“In that case,” Tanya said, stretching. “I believe I still have some plans I need to put into full schematics for Professor Bilderling to construct.” Regent Schwartz’s good friend had been a huge help in laying some groundwork for the infrastructural buildup she had been planning, but she was taking the opportunity to visit her lands and see if her designs needed adjustment before implementation. 

After all, she knows from her time in the military that no plan made safe in the rear lines could be properly implemented without accounting for the realities of the front, and in construction, that was just as true. 

Which is why she needs to finish her Ground-Penetrating Seismic Radar, find a good spot for her second, much better oil well, and show them, show them all! “MWHAHAHAHAHA!”

“Thinking about your adoring public again?” Gil asked, amused. 

“Silence, Gilgamesh!” Tanya said, flushing. “Now, I’ve noticed that the airship’s made our testing of the radar useless due to all the vibrations from minor turbulence. So I got an idea on how to account for such things, which would vastly improve potential fidelity of the scans! Come now, there’s Science to do!”

“For Science!” Gil shouted, grinning savagely as he squared his shoulders, making him look twice as large as he normally was, his stance emphasizing his muscles in a way his usual stance didn’t. Xerxsephnia, who seemed to think that Tanya somehow needed to hear just how helpless she was against the boy’s ‘animal magnetism’, liked describing him when he was like this as ‘going full caveman’ and somehow this was supposed to make women weak at the knees. 

…Still weird. Nevertheless, Tanya was inspired, and installed gyroscopic stabilizers on the scanners, overhauled the repurposed decryption algorithms that interpreted the data, and by the end of things, twenty-three hours later… “Behold!” Tanya shouted, eyes wild and hands twitching with caffeine. “The Magnetic Land Surveyor Mk. II! Not even an Earthquake can prevent me from getting my data!” She pointed dramatically. “Gilgamesh! Flip the switch!”

“Yes, Mistress!” Gil said, grinning just as widely. For some reason she could not recall, Gil had made the switch so that you needed a fair bit of strength to move it. Gil’s tattered shirt strained with his muscles as he turned on the device. 

Not important. Tanya eagerly watched the screen as the data was output. As they were still in the air, it produced a very clear image of the metal structure of the airship. “...Those struts are overstressed.” She concluded, “They’ll need replacing soon.” Looking at the structure as a whole, calculating structural forces… probably should add some reinforcement while they’re at it. 

“It worked!” Gil proclaimed. 

Tanya laughed maniacally. “It worked!” She agreed, “By the time I’m ready to take over in full, I will have the finest geological surveys in the world! Every metal, every mineral, every single hydrocarbon deposit will be tracked for maximum exploitation! All because of the power of-”

“SCIENCE!” Both of them shouted in tune. 

Tanya promptly passed out from exhaustion. 

-------------------------

Fortunately, they had left late enough in the day that Tanya’s exhaustion-caused sleep was overnight, and she woke back up in the morning. She awoke in a well-appointed room that, after a moment for her brain to boot back up, she recognized as the master bedroom of Rhine Castle, a place she’d only had a chance to use once before. 

Stretching, she admired the apparently new silk nightgown she had been dressed in, and started to ready herself for the day. As she was consulted during the reconstruction, the castle was equipped with natural gas-powered central heating and plumbing, so she could shower in peace without needing to inform any staff, as she recalled needing to be done when her “father” was in power. 

In hindsight, Tanya realized that the orphan pilots were actually treated somewhat well, now that she realized what kind of conditions contemporary military pilots usually endured. Not a lot better, mind you, but they had a lot more access to hot water and better rations than what the Wulfenbach military provided. 

Once she left the bathroom, having finished drying herself and wearing a towel in her hair, there were two maids waiting in her room, one young and pretty, the other aged and dignified. Neither gave any impression that they even noticed Tanya’s nakedness. “Good Morning, Countess.” the older one said, both curtseying. “What should we be dressing for, today?” 

Tanya blinked. She’d seen Neena with Ms Poppins, so the phrasing wasn’t entirely foreign, but… Hm. “Today…” She said, drawing out the word to think about her itinerary. “For the morning, I’d like to have a long talk with Regent Schwartz, breakfast to lunch, then after lunch…” Wait, she could send Gil out to take the readings. “After lunch I’ll speak with Professor Bilderling about a new oil well I’d like dug, and whichever other projects of mine are financially viable to implement, as he’d be taking point on those.”

The older maid nodded. “Very well. Julie, inform the Regent that the Countess wishes his presence at breakfast.” Tanya assumed that he’d already be there, but if he normally took breakfast in his quarters or something, they’d know better than her. 

“Make sure Gilgamesh is there too, I have an assignment for him.” Tanya added as Julie left. 

“Now, given that you’ll be in meetings for most of the day, I know just the dress for you, Countess. Not too heavy, but fit for gentlemen to see you in.” The older maid said, ushering Tanya to the dressing screen. 

Even if you were used to it, the process of getting dressed in contemporary clothing was rather slow. Then there was the makeup… “There.” The old maid, whose name was Hilda, said as she put the finishing touches. “You have to look your best for Master Gilgamesh.”

Tanya frowned. “It’s not like that.” She insisted, “Gil’s a commoner, and I need to think about the politics of any match.” Hilda gave her a skeptical look. “Besides, he’d want more than I’d be willing to give, and he doesn’t deserve that.”

Hilda smiled. “Oh? What does he deserve, then?”

Tanya blushed. Why does everyone automatically assume that she likes Gil like that? …Probably because Gil does like her like that, and that’s a tragedy. “Gil deserves someone who gets distracted when he’s not wearing a shirt, someone like Seffie.” Yes, the status gap was even further apart there, but if Seffie’s grandmother is willing to indulge her granddaughter’s romantic wishes, Tanya’s not going to say she shouldn’t. It’s not like the girl’s anywhere near ruling anything, and if she doesn’t want to fix that by marrying someone who is, that’s her business. “That’s someone I could never be.” Composing herself, she stood up and reviewed her makeup. She could hear Visha’s voice, calling her beautiful. For a heartbeat, Visha’s face replaced the maid’s in the mirror. She’s long since used to the hallucinations, schizophrenia had a known comorbidity with being a Spark, she was just glad that she only hallucinated memories. Even if a lot of them weren’t very pleasant. “No, I’ll never be marrying a man for love.”

Fortunately, Hilda seemed to get the message. “God sends some people harder challenges than others.” She said, clearly intending for it to be consolation. “It makes those who overcome all the greater for it.”

…Actually, that did make her feel better. Even if Hilda would likely disagree with her on what constituted the challenge that needed to be overcome. “Now, to breakfast!” Tanya said, walking off to the rest of her day. 

-------------------------

As it turned out, the County was doing… pretty good! Harvest for the last few years, since the implementation of the new tractors, did not fall short of the projections, and even went close to the optimistic figures due to favorable weather. Losses to pests were up, but they’d already pushed the chicken population to increase so they can better stay on top of the bugs this year. 

So, she had enough money available to begin investment into two of the projects she had wanted to start, both oriented around improving the infrastructure: First, she wanted to have good roads made, so larger amounts of cargo could be shipped to market. Despite the horror stories of sea monsters, it was still relatively safe to go downstream to the Black Sea and hug the coast to Istanbul, which is the most available market for Rhine County’s goods. 

While requesting that the train monks build a station in her territory was out of the question, it was also a possibility to cooperate with Mechanicsburg and build and maintain a road to Clankshead for shipping with the Corbiettes, which is enough of a separation that Tanya was willing to consider it, but while the train monks took passengers for free, freight was another matter entirely: even monks needed to eat, and trains were hungry beasts. 

It was still a pretty good idea, so Tanya took into account the possibilities to expand the high capacity roads in pretty much any direction when designing them; it kind of made the road map look more like railroads in design than ones for heavy vehicles. 

As for the smaller roads, Tanya didn’t ignore them: one of the relatively new innovations back in her second life, as it was too early for the proper autobahn technology like she wanted for the high capacity roads, was a tool called a King Road Drag (invented by a man whose family name was King) that was pulled along dirt roads, compacting them enough to make them substantially more durable and slightly sloped to resist the formation of puddles with minimal investment required; you just needed to wait for the roads to become wet before doing so. 

Thus, in addition to the commissioning of the proper concrete roads on the thickest arteries of trade in the County, dozens of Road Drags were constructed as per Tanya’s specifications and men who had the beasts of burden or tractor power to pull them were hired and given sections of the official road map to go over after the next rainfall. 

The second project, once operational, should make good use of the new system: There was an ice industry in Rhine, a very dangerous one. So she designed and ordered to have built a series of water purifying stations, which in addition to creating clean (by her high standards) drinking water for the urban centers, also operated an industrial icemaker, which was then transported to the rural areas to run their iceboxes and other similar areas. 

Well, apparently ice was big business, which was a bit of a surprise when refrigeration was absolutely a thing that existed, just not as widespread as she had thought, so she also designed and ordered an independent icemaking facility on the river just to make some money. There was plenty of labor for this industry, those men normally tasked with trudging up the mountain and collecting ice could now drive the trucks and operate the machinery, a similar but much easier job. Well, the ones who didn’t switch to road construction could do that, anyway. The labor demands for this were naturally lower, and hopefully they could make some nice margins before the market realized that the cost of ice was about to drop, so they could make the initial investment back. 

So it was about half way through her twenty day vacation that she stocked up the Absolute Safety Mecha Mk. IV and started on her journey to Mechanicsburg, as Mechanicsburg lacked an airship dock and didn’t allow for them to land anyway, and it would take a Heterodyne to overturn that. Only Castle Wulfenbach and the support craft were permitted to violate Mechanicsburg airspace without it being an act of war. No one but tourists really wanted to go there, so the restrictions on air travel lended an air of danger to the trip. Gil was not yet satisfied that the men helping him survey the lands knew what they were doing, so once that was completed he was to meet with her at the airship dock in Balan’s Gap where they would return to Paris. 

 She had walked around with her mecha before, in Paris, even tested the weaponry and armor by pitting it against some of the scale model clanks in the Military Recreation Club, but never had she taken such a long journey with it. 

It was exciting! Wandering the wastes, really putting her finest machine through its paces. Sure, there were a few monsters on the way, but she always made sure that they attacked first before destroying them. It was part of the pact between Mechanicsburg and Rhine County, not to attack their monsters on sight in return for those monsters not attacking. With listed financial damages owed if either side violates it. 

Needless to say, the Heterodyne’s lack of control over their monsters in their absence has created a rather sizable debt that was still tracked; the dead monsters mitigated the debt of course, but if it wasn’t for the fact that the debt was uncollectible until a new Lord Heterodyne re-affirmed the terms of the treaty, there’d be quite the treasury she could invest in further infrastructural improvements. It was a bit of a shame, but it’s not like another Heterodyne was going to show up anytime soon, so it was just a theoretical windfall. 

The wastes were beautiful, in their own way. Dangerous, of course, but that was to poorly equipped travelers, not women of science in very expensive weapon platforms. The last-minute addition of low-fidelity seismic sensors in the Mecha’s feet helped assess the integrity of the ground, which alerted her if she was about to step on anything incapable of supporting the forty ton machine. It was twice the size of the seven-ton mecha she developed for mass production, but the frame, made by Baron Wulfenbach, was built out of significantly superior materials, being both lighter and stronger, so it was only six times the weight instead of eight. 

The hazards were many, to be sure, but there was a certain artistry to seeing the ruins of those who once opposed the Heterodynes, or were destroyed by them simply for being weak, as was the nature of the evil Heterodyne house before the famous Bill and Barry Heterodyne redeemed the name. She could imagine what they once were, a burned out husk of a machine a mighty war stomper, the streets of a former village alive with the small lives of simple folk. 

Right as she cleared a hill, she noticed a pair of giant blue spiders crossing her path, already on guard and looking at her. It was understandable; the Absolute Safety Mecha Mk. IV was not a quiet machine. That did give her some ideas of how to fix that, but the power requirements… better not. 

“Fig?” One of the pale women wearing blue wrappings asked as she noticed the mech, which Tanya assumed meant something like ‘What?’. 

The Geisterdammen, also known as ‘Weibdamen’, ‘Ghost women’, ‘Spider riders’, and other colorful titles, were yet another species of human-created monster, like the Jagermonsters. The difference, of course, was that no one knew exactly what was up with them: who made them, what orders were they operating from, if they even still had a master? If anyone knew, they were keeping it a secret. 

Seeing as how this extended to things like ‘how they feed themselves’ and ‘can you trade with them’, Tanya was immediately suspicious. They might be communists. It was rather unlikely, was her eventual conclusion, but it pointed to them still being supplied and directed by their original creator, so it was smart to be cautious of them. 

The women discussed something among themselves, their language was sufficiently foreign that Tanya couldn’t really make heads or tails of it. Geisterprache was, near as she could tell, using a completely original linguistic root in comparison to any human tongue, although she was hardly an expert; it could just use an African root of some kind and she wouldn’t be able to tell. 

Still, they apparently decided to come closer, and Tanya readied her weapons systems. “Do not approach, Geisterdammen.” Tanya announced through her mecha’s still-robust speaker system. “Unless you speak a different language, we have nothing to discuss.”

Something about her words seemed to surprise the ghost women, and they exchanged quick words with each other before changing their riding stance, which signaled to the spiders that it was time for combat. The spiders burst to the sides, clearly expecting Tanya’s mecha to be weaker from the flanks and behind.

They weren’t wrong, of course, but the Absolute Safety Mecha mk. IV was far from helpless against a flanking approach. Having already engaged combat mode, Tanya’s Mecha spun on one foot and allowed her to fully engage one of the spider riders with the mecha’s primary armament: a Minigun that emerged from the torso and fired a stream of bullets, which the nimble spider danced to avoid, somehow managing the feat. 

Behind her, the other spider darted closer to take advantage of her weakness, but some of the decorative facade exploded, a shrapnel bomb successfully shredding the spider and injuring the woman before she could do anything about it. 

“Kista!” The front geister shouted in concern. If you wanted to stay alive, you shouldn’t have tried to accost random women in mecha suits. 

Still, Tanya switched to the coilguns, maneuvering the remaining spider rider as she continued to avoid being in front of her guns. It didn’t take long before the spider rushed upwards, leaping over the mecha, which Tanya intercepted with her dedicated anti-air flak cannons. They didn’t have many shots, none of her weapon systems except one were designed for extended engagements, but they were excellent for dealing with small ambush forces like this one. 

She didn’t know why the spider riders attacked her, a random obviously-a-spark woman in the middle of the wastes, nor did she know where they got their confidence from, but she’s been in the military; she knows to confirm her kills. Their bodies were crushed underneath her mecha’s boots, and she moved on after collecting their most valuable belongings: their weapons, which were made of a material that was just fascinating, and their packs, which contained supplies and language samples that someone in Paris would absolutely love. 

…Actually, she shouldn’t be so condescending to them. Being able to dodge minigun fire was actually pretty impressive, and if she had been using some of the other mecha she’s seen Sparks claim as adequately armed killing machines, they might have won. 

…They probably would have won, if those clumsy, underarmed excuses for mecha were also piloted by someone who wasn’t the spark who invented it. They probably assumed she was barely involved in the operation of the mecha, actually. For most sparks, it’d be easier to make a clank that could carry a passenger than to make a mecha that doesn’t require months of training to use. 

Mystery solved, Tanya continued on her way. 

-------------------------

Mechanicsburg was a walled city in a valley surrounded by mountains. If the defenses were operational, it was a nigh indestructible fortress. Fortunately, it was crippled by the Baron’s men, who continually dismantle any functioning defense systems, which made the rest of Europa satisfied about its continued existence without eradicating the place down to whatever the hell lets it outflow an entire damned river without any visible inflow. Some kind of powerful well, to be certain… 

Nowadays, its primary industry was actually tourism, but it still retained some of the finest non-spark craftsmen in Europa, so here she was. 

“Mechanicsburg, Mechanicsburg, Welcome to Mechanicsburg! There's no finer city from St. Petersburg to Rome.” Sang a group of local kids as she approached the gate, her mecha’s stomps well supported by the sturdy road. It almost made Tanya wish she had included the full version of her ground penetrating radar, because what little she was getting indicated a truly extensive series of basements and tunnels. “Mechanicsburg, Mechanicsburg, The loveliest we've ever heard of, Jewel of Europa and The place where we call home.” 

As someone exposed to advertising from a very young age, Tanya didn’t think the tourist song was very catchy. It wasn’t terrible, though. “How mighty are her mighty walls, How shiny are her clanks, How beautiful her dairy farms, And for her cheese we all give thanks.” She could go for some good cheese, actually. Perhaps with some of their famous snails? 

“How glorious her Hospital, which helps folk far and near, Bill and Barry Heterodyne, built it for us here.” Ah, maybe she should say hello to Dr. Sun while she’s here. He returned to this hospital, last she heard. Unfortunately, it was Daiyu who came with him instead of her sister, so there would be no little trysts.

“Mechanicsburg, Mechanicsburg, Welcome to Mechanicsburg, We thank you so for visiting, With every erg and ohm.” Or, at least, there won’t be any trysts with old friends…

Tanya’s first stop in the famous city of Mechanicsburg was the local pub, the infamous ‘Madame Gkikkas’. She’s heard so many good things about it from her jagermonster friends. 

“Mechanicsburg, Mechanicsburg,

The greatest burg we've ever heard of,

Jewel of Europa and

The place where we call home.”